Picture Analysis

This image from World War II Russia is a very moving and dramatic example of fantastic photography. Here the photographer uses nearly every tool at his disposal to create a masterpiece that tells an amazing, yet incredibly sad story. The photographer positions himself at an extremely low angle, nearly at eye level with the dead soldier in the foreground, and focuses the camera on the body. Here all the gruesome details of a terrible death become apparent. The blood caked on his face and draining out of his head, as well as the unnatural position of his limbs, tells of the agony of the soldiers demise. The existence of other men being in the picture, yet blurred exaggerates the effect of death, essentially the presence of death in the picture blurs out the presence of life.
Another interesting thing to note is the darkness of the dead man, compared to the grayness of the rest of the picture, because of this, he is the only thing that actually stands out, both as the focus of the camera, and the darkest object in the photograph. In this picture, the photographer has used every tool at his disposal to tell a gruesome story of death and hopelessness, and the horror of war.